Green Energy Revolution Megathread

[dps]

You know what I am really tired of? Commentators thinking they are dropping some sort of bomb shell by pointing out that Wind and Solar do not produce at full capacity all the time. Um...yes everybody is aware of that. That is how those resources work. But we can predict how much we can expect them to produce during a certain period. And the idea is that eventually energy storage will play a role in using the energy they do produce in periods it is most needed.

Next you will shock everybody by pointing out that bridges do not bear their capacity all the time, so why are we paying for all that steel?

Eh, just put a giant fan in front of the windmill.

Not sure that I'm in favor of expanding Timmay to giant size.  I don't think we have the technology to do it anyway.

[Tonitrus]

Shoot, just putting solar panels on top of all of the homes in most of Texas could probably make them the world's largest energy exporter.

So long as they can endure the occasional hail storm. 

[Eddie Teach]

You know what I am really tired of? Commentators thinking they are dropping some sort of bomb shell by pointing out that Wind and Solar do not produce at full capacity all the time. Um...yes everybody is aware of that. That is how those resources work. But we can predict how much we can expect them to produce during a certain period. And the idea is that eventually energy storage will play a role in using the energy they do produce in periods it is most needed.

Next you will shock everybody by pointing out that bridges do not bear their capacity all the time, so why are we paying for all that steel?

Eh, just put a giant fan in front of the windmill.

Not sure that I'm in favor of expanding Timmay to giant size.  I don't think we have the technology to do it anyway.

When did the Giants move to Boston? 

[The Brain]

Most bridges bear their capacity whenever we need them to. Day, night, rain, shine...

And wind farms and solar farms are expected to produce what they are capable of and expected to deliver. Nobody is installing them expecting them to produce their maximum capacity all the time, that is not how they work.

My impression is that there are many people who sincerely believe that we can switch to just wind and solar. I suppose what annoys you is meant for them.

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like Cali will pass the 100% renewable by 2045 bill this year

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-renewable-energy-goal-bill-20180828-story.html#

Colorado building zero coal, zero gas, all renewable

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/08/28/colorado-trades-away-coal-and-gas-for-solarwindstorage/

Texas going green, building zero coal, 86% wind and solar

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/08/23/texas-going-green-86-of-future-capacity-solar-or-wind-zero-coal/

[mongers]

Something to warm the cockles of Tyr's heart:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245158775_The_British_coal_global_warming_RD_programme

The British coal global warming R&D programme

Article in Energy Conversion and Management 33(5):803-811 · May 1992 with 1 Reads
DOI: 10.1016/0196-8904(92)90087-D

Abstract
The threat of possible global warming is sufficient to warrant 'least regrets' measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and investigation of fallback options, such as carbon dioxide removal from coal-fired power plants. The Global Warming R&D Programme is investigating carbon dioxide removal options, sometimes called 'Low CO2 Power Generation'. An assessment programme has estimated the thermal efficiency of a number of process schemes and concluded that gasification based systems, with the addition of a CO shift reactor and CO2 scrubbers or a membrane gas separator, provide promising approaches. A clean hydrogen fuel would be fired in a gas turbine and 90% of the CO2 removed and exported as a liquid stream for storage in exhausted oil or gas fields. Costs of such power plants are now being explored and a collaborative programme is commencing with membrane developers, with the aim of developing and testing membranes for this duty. The paper outlines the background and describes preparation for experimental work using CO2/H2 separating membranes.

Interesting that they were that decided or advanced in their thinking, more than one quarter of a century ago. 

IIRC current progress on carbon capture is largely* limited to pilots that re-inject C02 into oil and gas fields to increase the extraction of hydrocarbons.   


* Certainly two-thirds.

[HVC]

So apparently the SEC is going after Musk for securities fraud and to Bar him from being CEO of Tesla

[Admiral Yi]

Yowza

[Valmy]

So apparently the SEC is going after Musk for securities fraud and to Bar him from being CEO of Tesla

Well...it was nice while it lasted I guess. We will see how a Musk-less Tesla survives.

[Zanza]

Musk went off the rails over the last year or so. Maybe too much stress...

[Admiral Yi]

10 quatloos he beats the rap.

[jimmy olsen]

Yay?

https://twitter.com/SimonMaloy/status/1045666950851043328

this is fucking wild

the Trump administration is arguing that climate change is both real and will be catastrophic -- so catastrophic that we may as well just go ahead and loosen fuel efficiency standards because we're already dead

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-sees-a-7-degree-rise-in-global-temperatures-by-2100/2018/09/27/b9c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html?utm_term=.9434f759132a

Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100

By Juliet Eilperin ,
Brady Dennis and
Chris Mooney
September 28 at 9:00 AM
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.

A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.

But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet's fate is already sealed.

The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Trump's decision to freeze federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.


"The amazing thing they're saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they're saying they're not going to do anything about it," said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002.

The document projects that global temperature will rise by nearly 3.5 degrees Celsius above the average temperature between 1986 and 2005 regardless of whether Obama-era tailpipe standards take effect or are frozen for six years, as the Trump administration has proposed. The global average temperature rose more than 0.5 degrees Celsius between 1880, the start of industrialization, and 1986, so the analysis assumes a roughly 4 degree Celsius or 7 degree Fahrenheit increase from preindustrial levels.

The world would have to make deep cuts in carbon emissions to avoid this drastic warming,the analysis states. And that "would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today's levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible."


The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

World leaders have pledged to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, and agreed to try to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But the current greenhouse gas cuts pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement are not steep enough to meet either goal. Scientists predict a 4 degree Celsius rise by the century's end if countries take no meaningful actions to curb their carbon output.

Trump has vowed to exit the Paris accord and called climate change a hoax. In the past two months, the White House has pushed to dismantle nearly half a dozen major rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, deregulatory moves intended to save companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

If enacted, the administration's proposals would give new life to aging coal plants; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere; and prevent new curbs on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air-conditioning units. The vehicle rule alone would put 8 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year's worth of total U.S. emissions, according to the government's own analysis.


Administration estimates acknowledge that the policies would release far more greenhouse gas emissions from America's energy and transportation sectors than otherwise would have been allowed.

David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified against Trump's freeze of fuel efficiency standards this week in Fresno, Calif., said his organization is prepared to use the administration's own numbers to challenge their regulatory rollbacks. He noted that the NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100.

"I was shocked when I saw it," Pettit said in a phone interview. "These are their numbers. They aren't our numbers."

Conservatives who condemned Obama's climate initiatives as regulatory overreach have defended the Trump administration's approach, calling it a more reasonable course.


Obama's climate policies were costly to industry and yet "mostly symbolic," because they would have made barely a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation research fellow Nick Loris, adding: "Frivolous is a good way to describe it."

NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., to help prepare the impact statement. An agency spokeswoman said the Environmental Protection Agency "and NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis" but declined to provide additional information about the agency's long-term temperature forecast.

Federal agencies typically do not include century-long climate projections in their environmental impact statements. Instead, they tend to assess a regulation's impact during the life of the program — the years a coal plant would run, for example, or the amount of time certain vehicles would be on the road.


Using the no-action scenario "is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics," said MIT Sloan School of Management professor John Sterman. "First, the administration proposes vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing [to fight climate change]. Then [the administration] makes their impact seem even smaller by comparing their proposals to what would happen if the entire world does nothing."

This week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned leaders gathered in New York, "If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change. . . . Our future is at stake."

Yes, humans have made wildfires worse. Here?s how. VIEW GRAPHIC
Federal and independent research — including projections included in last month's analysis of the revised fuel-efficiency standards — echoes that theme. The environmental impact statement cites "evidence of climate-induced changes," such as more frequent droughts, floods, severe storms and heat waves, and estimates that seas could rise nearly three feet globally by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output.


Two articles published in the journal Science since late July — both co-authored by federal scientists — predicted that the global landscape could be transformed "without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions" and declared that soaring temperatures worldwide bore humans' "fingerprint."

"With this administration, it's almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy," said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate and energy program. "That feedback isn't informing the policy."

Administration officials say they take federal scientific findings into account when crafting energy policy — along with their interpretation of the law and President Trump's agenda. The EPA's acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has been among the Trump officials who have noted that U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants have fallen over time.


But the debate comes after a troubling summer of devastating wildfires, record-breaking heat and a catastrophic hurricane — each of which, federal scientists say, signals a warming world.

Some Democratic elected officials, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, said Americans are starting to recognize these events as evidence of climate change. On Feb. 25, Inslee met privately with several Cabinet officials, including then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Western state governors. Inslee accused them of engaging in "morally reprehensible" behavior that threatened his children and grandchildren, according to four meeting participants, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details of the private conversation.

In an interview, Inslee said that the ash from wildfires that covered Washington residents' car hoods this summer, and the acrid smoke that filled their air, has made more voters of both parties grasp the real-world implications of climate change.

"There is anger in my state about the administration's failure to protect us," he said. "When you taste it on your tongue, it's a reality."

[Malicious Intent]

10 quatloos he beats the rap.

He allegedly was offered a pretty good deal, but chose to fight. He must be pretty sure of his win....or decided to go down fighting.

Question to the experts: Does Musk's behavior actually constitute fraud? He did not gain anything from the whole affair, at least personally, and I'm not sure, who the targeted victim would have been.

[The Minsky Moment]

The SEC does not have to prove Musk gained, they also don't have to prove any investor relied on the statement.  They just have to prove a false statement is made and that Musk knew it was false when made.  It is a civil burden of proof - mere preponderance of the evidence.

Many of the rules and restrictions that investor plaintiffs face in these kinds of suits don't apply to the SEC.

[HVC]

Didn't he quote a buy out price of 420 because he thought it was funny? Wouldn't that effect stock prices and thus be fraud?